Читать книгу Blackfire: The Rise of the Creeping Moors - James Daniel Eckblad - Страница 12

“Oh yes, the domes in the earth!” Aneht announced to the girls. “It makes no difference whether they are inside or outside the earth. All of the domes have in each of their ceilings an open portal to a starway! You can go anywhere from here, and return to here from anywhere—as long as you travel on one of the starways! Yes, yes, go out in any direction, and then return—in no direction!”

Elli swallowed down a large bite of the Susan-flavored pie with a sip of the water flavored with the scent of a summer meadow, and said, accepting Aneht’s changing of the subject, “Aneht—how can you go away in any direction, but return in no direction?” Having not done the bulk of the talking, Aneht was nearly finished with her own pies, while both girls had more than half of their pies remaining.

“Oh, yes, yes! I see! It’s because your return is always to the center!”

“To the center? The center of what, Aneht?”

“Why, the center of the universe, of course! Else you couldn’t return in no direction!” Aneht said, chuckling.

The girls slowed markedly in their eating and drinking, pondering the opacity of the simple words and phrases—and of the seemingly simple notions—regarding the one astounding assertion made by Aneht.

“‘The center of the universe, of course?’” each of the girls repeated to herself. Elli glanced back at the layers of mud domes; Beatríz sat still, holding a half-eaten pie over her plate. The two friends then looked toward each other, smiling, and lightly shook their heads.

Elli and Beatríz remained silent for some minutes absorbed in thought as they indulged in the scent-flavored pies and water. Finally, Elli asked, before taking another bite of her first pie, “So, Aneht, how long did it take for us to get from the tomb to Sanctuary?”

“Oh—no time at all—no, no . . . Yes, yes—no time at all.”

“But I thought time is always running on, and running out, as I think you said?”

“Yes, yes—time itself is always running on and running out, but not for those on the journey—they are always here and there! They are inside time . . . And so, when we are on the starways, we are inside time—not running on or running out for us! No, no! Yes, yes!”

“But then for whom? For whom is time running out?”

“For those not on the journey the time is running on and running out! For all who are evil, time runs on and runs out . . . ”

“But when does time run out? And then what happens?”

“Oh . . . Yes, yes! Well . . . for those not on the journey the time is always running out—it is always running out—or, it has already run out, I should say, and continues to already have run out; every moment, dear children, it runs out—every moment that one tries to live the moment eternally, time has already run out! No, no—cannot live the moment eternally—only live eternally in the moment! That is the never-ending—and-always-arriving—journey!”

“I don’t understand, Aneht—what do you mean by not living each moment eternally, but yet living eternally in each moment? What do you mean? And I don’t see the difference, except . . . except in word order—in how you say it!”

“Oh . . . yes, yes! Big difference—huge difference—oh my! Yes, yes, big difference—infinite difference! You see, it is those who do not see—but are only blinded by—the light of the Good, who try to live in the moment—each moment—as if it will last forever. It is what ungrounded pleasure and happiness is all about, for example, or self-indulgence, yes, yes; or self-distraction and denial of death; wanting what is inherently temporary to be infinitely enduring—wanting the moment of pleasure or bliss or self-indulgence . . . to, to last forever!” Aneht exclaimed, spreading wide all six limbs and rocking back in her chair.

“It is, dear girls, what adultness is all about—what Sutante Bliss is all about! Yes, yes, what Sutante promises: living the moment—of pleasure, for example—eternally, as if it will last forever!”

“But, Aneht . . . while I think I understand what you mean by trying to live the moment, trying to live it, eternally—as if one can live in a single moment forever—what do you then mean by living forever—or living eternally—in the moment? How is that different? And how is that better?”

“Oh my . . . Yes, yes . . . I see . . . same words, but simply reversed! The backside, of course—yes, yes, always a front and a back, always connected, always seem the same, but infinitely apart! Infinitely separated—but infinitely connected, the front and the back!”

“Oh, dear Aneht, I do so want to understand but—”

“Oh, dear Elli, you need to understand; you must understand. Both of you! It’s why you are in Sanctuary!”

“So, then please! Help me—help us! What do you mean by infinitely connected, but yet infinitely separated? And why is this important?”

“Yes, yes . . . well . . . ” Aneht pulled out a small coin, the size of a quarter. “Yes, yes, so . . . what, Elli, do I have in my hand?”

“Why, a coin, of course—no?” Elli asked, feeling immediately certain, and then, given that nothing in Bairnmoor actually seemed certain at all, feeling suddenly diffident.

“Yes, yes, a coin. Very good. And how many sides to the coin, Elli?”

“Why . . . two sides, of course.”

“Yes, yes . . . and why do you say ‘two sides, of course?’”

“Well . . . ” Elli shifted, as if uncomfortable in her cushion, as did Beatríz. “Because if you have one side to a coin, you have to have another side. There would be no such thing as a one-sided coin—that would make no sense!”

“Yes, yes! But not no sense—but nonsense! That is to say, what I’m telling you makes no sense; but that doesn’t make it not true! Indeed, quite to the contrary! Yes! Yes!

“No, no . . . Must have two sides—must always have two sides, if you have one! Yes, yes—very good, Elli. Now, look at the coin, and imagine that the coin is so thin that the two sides are as close to each other as possible, and tell me: how far apart are the two sides?” Elli bent over the coin in Aneht’s outstretched hand to get a good look at it—Beatríz already bent over to finger it.

Elli stared at the coin—and glanced at Beatríz, who was smiling, as if she understood perfectly, as if simply by touching the coin. “Beatríz . . . do you know the answer?”

“Yes, yes . . . I think so!” And all of them laughed at Beatríz’s involuntary mimicking of Aneht. “I think so! They are not far apart at all! They are not even apart at all! They are as close to each other as two things can be—they are connected, so that if you removed one side you would also remove the other side. No, they are not apart at all!” Elli smiled at Beatríz and squeezed her hand.

“Yes, yes, Beatríz! Yes, yes! But then, looking once more at the coin—I’ll now ask you: can you, if you are on one side, ever be on the other side?” Elli and Beatríz both stared in the direction of the coin, Beatríz fingering it once more, and furrowed their brows.

“Aneht . . . Is this a trick?” Elli said flatly, as if weary of the puzzling conversation.

“Yes, yes—no, no! I mean, yes, yes, I see why you would ask that, but no, no, it’s not a trick. Quite to the contrary! It is what is most real—and, dear girl, it is a reality to prepare you for war, in a world you must understand!” Elli and Beatríz sat straight up and turned to look at each other, wide eyed. They then returned to look at Aneht or, in the case of Beatríz, in the direction of Aneht’s voice.

“Aneht, I guess the logical answer is no, you can’t ever be on one side and also be on the other side!” said Beatríz.

“Yes, yes, very good . . . in that way, they are also infinitely far apart! Indeed, you cannot even go from one side to the other. You would have to leave one side to get to the other side, would you not?”

“Yes, I see that, I think, Aneht. It would be like trying to go around something without an edge, or like falling off the edge of one side to get to the other! And how would one get to the other side if one has simply fallen off the edge?”

“Yes, yes, Beatríz. Yes, yes! And, Elli?”

“And . . . If they are connected—infinitely close to one another—then there is no area of circumference to form, say, another side, perpendicular to the front and back sides, correct?—Although, I am not sure how to visualize it . . . ”

“Yes, yes, perfectly stated, Elli—and Beatríz! You have seen that each side is two-dimensional, not three—a side in space . . . And so a side without a side—except an opposite side, with no side perpendicular to the side in space to get you as a passage to the other side! Just a two-sided plane in space—and so no place at all for that perpendicular side! No, no! Yes, yes—you see?”

“I think so,” Elli said, in a tone suggesting that perhaps she didn’t—or that she was failing to see the relevancy of what reminded her of a geometry lesson in school.

“I think so, too,” offered Beatríz, “but . . . ”

“Yes, yes . . . so, since it is impossible either to be on one side and also on the other side, or even to travel from one side to the next, is it impossible to get from one side to the other, then?”

“Aneht!” blurted out Beatríz. “This sounds like magical realism—something I studied in Spanish literature class! Hee-hee!”

“Yes, yes! Well, I wouldn’t know about that, Beatríz, but it is sort of like being both magic—and real! It’s what one would call in Bairnmoor—or,” Aneht added in a subdued tone, “if only now in Sanctuary, a ‘probable impossibility!’”

Elli’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open on hearing from Aneht the exact words used by Butterfly, and wondered if the two were actually acquainted with each other. She reminded herself to ask later on.

“But, aren’t you asking a nonsense question, Aneht? I mean,” said Elli, “you just asked, didn’t you, whether it was possible to go from one side to the other, when you already just said that it was impossible to go from one side to the other?”

“Yes, yes! Of course! It makes no sense! It’s foolishness—and illogical—but hardly nonsense!—and it’s quite the case that something most real can seem to the mind most foolish!”

“Aneht,” Elli interrupted, thinking back on her similar conversation with Butterfly by the Lake of Imagination, and perhaps looking for confirmation, “this is becoming still more confusing! What is the difference between something ‘making no sense’ and something else ‘being nonsense?’”

“Yes! Yes! I see! I see! You see, to say accurately that it is nonsense is to say that it makes no sense when it ought to, if making sense determines whether it can be true or not. But, to say accurately that something is true that makes no sense means that it lies outside of those things that make sense!” Aneht rose and took the girls’ plates with two hands while pointing with the finger of a third toward the blue sky to emphasize her next words.

“If it is something that—truly—makes no sense,” Aneht announced, standing in front of the girls, “then it is an answer that is outside of rationality and logic, and seemingly foolish, but which nevertheless may be inside wisdom. The answer, dear girls, is that you get from one side to the other by going into one side and out the other!”

Abruptly Aneht spun entirely around and headed with the plates toward the Sanctuary kitchen, exclaiming, “I’m going to neaten things up a bit, and we all need a little break from our oh so heady conversation, yes, yes. And you two, goodness me, need time and the facilities to freshen up some, wash, comb hair, and get as clean as these plates I’m going to wash. And if the body needs refreshing, so the mind as well. For a while girls, no more rationality and logic and sense and nonsense or an opposite side, with no side perpendicular to the side in space to get you as a passage to the other side,” and at this juncture Aneht and the girls laughed as Aneht placed the dishes in a sink while directing the girls to enter through a curtained doorway. On the other side the girls discovered to their almost euphoric delight a large grub bathroom, with nothing grubby about it. From the shelves Elli and Beatríz took soap, slipped off their clothes, and stepped into a domed shower that was large enough for eight girls—or one ground grub! They found the soap for both body and hair to be aromatic and soothing as well as effective, and finished their cleaning with body lotion from earthen flasks that was tingling and renewing, smelling like the taste of fresh peaches. When they stepped from the shower they discovered their clothes, newly cleaned and mended!

Aneht was waiting for them, complimenting them on how transformed they’d become. “And now, as I was saying,” she said, while leading them back to the outside porch and their seats, “you get from one side to the other by going into one side and out the other! Now,” Aneht continued, folding her hands together over her substantial but firm abdomen, “how long would it take to get to one side through the other?” There was a long pause as the girls settled once more into their patio chairs.

“Well, I guess, in no time at all, since they are connected and infinitely close!” offered Beatríz.

“Yes, yes, precisely! Which is one reason why you can go anywhere and be any place you want in no time at all—because every place is one side that, of course, has an opposite side! Which is why, Elli and Beatríz, you can go through a white hole in no time at all, because a white hole is merely going into one side and out the other!”

“So, did we go from one side to another in the tomb—in the tunnel you pulled us through—to get to Sanctuary?” said Elli.

“Yes, yes, precisely—one side of the tomb is opposite another side in Sanctuary!”

“But,” interjected Elli, “it seemed to take time, Aneht . . . Not a lot of time, but some time—maybe five minutes of time?”

“Well, of course, inside you it took time, for time is all about what is happening on the inside of you . . . inside time, not the outside!”

“Is that what Butterfly meant by time ‘being a subset of eternity,’” said Elli, who then quickly added, to leave conversation about Cannotoads for another time, “or, of no time at all?”

“Yes, yes . . . Well . . . I don’t know this Butterfly you’ve told me about, but whoever he is, this one Butterfly has it correct.”

“Aneht, how do you know all this? Understand it all?” said Beatríz.

“I don’t dear girl! I simply proclaim it!”

“Childheart once told me,” said Elli, “that you cannot believe what you don’t understand. If you do not understand all this, then you can’t believe it, can you? I mean, because you wouldn’t know what you were claiming to believe!”

“Yes, yes . . . Now you are beginning to see it correctly—and, no, I do not know it—and so do not understand it—and so cannot believe it—but, yes, yes, but—as in nevertheless—the eternal nevertheless—” Aneht said, pointing a finger skyward, “I know the Good, and so understand the Good, and so believe the Good . . . And so proclaim the word of the Good . . . As that which is true!”

“But how, Aneht, do you know the Good?” Elli asked, leaning forward with Beatríz, each looking eager in their wonderment.

“Why, of course,” replied Aneht, in a gentle voice, “by being in relationship with the Good.”

“And how does that happen? How do you have a relationship with the Good?” said Elli, her eyes locked onto Aneht’s.

“By being Aneht in ways that I, Aneht, cannot be, except in relation to the Good! I know who and what I am by myself, and who and what I am in relation to the Good—which is always both more than I truly am by myself, and so more of who I truly am—”

“So, in other words, Aneht,” interrupted Elli, “you can proclaim what is true, even though you do not know it—or understand it—or even believe it—because you know and understand and believe the Good to be true—who calls you to proclaim what the Good tells you to proclaim?” (Like the Cannotoads, Elli was thinking.)

“Yes, yes, Elli—I think you have it! You are, in asserting what is true, making no sense! Yes, yes! But you are making sense of yourself!”

Elli squinted in perturbation, as if saying to Aneht, “I’m lost again!”

“Yes! Yes! You make—truly—no sense, Elli, but you also do so make sense by making sense of yourself—and so of the universe—and of your place in it!”

The sun was beginning to redden as it dropped slowly down the dusky sky toward the western horizon. Rivers of color, including changing hues and shades of red and yellow, flowed through low-slung clouds that lapped against the distant edge of the forest. Beatríz was about to ask Aneht what she meant when she said that by their being in her Mud Mansion they were also at the center of the universe, but she shivered visibly, suddenly aware that she was no longer basking in the light and warmth of the sun.

Elli was puzzling about other notions, including the notion of living eternally each moment, and was about to ask Aneht what she meant by their being prepared for war, when Aneht, on noticing Beatríz’s discomfort, announced, “Yes, yes! More time for questions, but we must be off! Off at once! Falcons will be above and about, spying for Sutante and looking for captives or prey wandering unawares!”

“I didn’t think any of the enemy was in Sanctuary, Aneht!” said Beatríz, in distress.

“Oh—yes, yes! No, no! No enemy in Sanctuary, but above Sanctuary! The Falcons cannot land in Sanctuary, but they can fly above it and snatch from it! Must be very aware at night! Yes, yes! So, let us be off!”

“Off to where?” asked Elli, as Aneht grabbed their hands, pulled them gently from their chairs, and dove back into the dome, lifting the girls off their feet.

“Why, off to sleep!”

“Here in Mud Mansion, Aneht?” asked Beatríz, her discomfort swallowed by an earnest curiosity.

“No, no! Heavens no! We go to sleep in the stars!” Aneht said, flinging the girls behind her as—effortlessly—she seemed to fly swiftly up one flight of circular stairs after another until almost instantly on leaving the porch they were standing in the middle of the single, uppermost dome of Mud Mansion, Aneht peering straight up at the hole glimmering in the middle of the ceiling. Beatríz could feel and smell that they were still inside the mansion, but that was as much as she knew.

“The hole in the ceiling, Beatríz,” Elli said. “Aneht is looking up at the hole. She looks sort of like a cat trying to decide if it can jump that high!” Aneht giggled.

“Yes, yes! Onto the starway! Here we go!” Aneht launched herself into the shimmering hole, pulling the girls up behind her as if they weighed nothing, and disappeared.